A civilian committee cannot complete the application form honestly. (Please do take a look)
Their objectives summary on the Charity Commission website (which is in line with the grant giving policy) says: The charity supports charitable purposes for the benefit of cadets and personnel of the Air Training Corps by providing grants and funding for activities that fall within the following categories and align to the RAF Air Cadets vision: Aviation, Adventure training, Exploiting technology, Immersive training, Enhance education, Improve employability, Health and wellbeing, Welfare.
Just like the RAFAC and its website, it completely glosses over the existence of the very people they collect payments from!
However, to stress as before, I am not going to dissect the ACC less than a year into their operation and I have the best of hopes that the ACC does not become a problem in the future. The questions and comments about the ACC themselves are the things that worry me as very little was distributed about it below Region level and that is starting to show. And that is what this thread was all about - What’s missing or doesn’t work in the Civilian Committee side of things.
I did. You didn’t mention a project, and I’m highlighting the distinction you made between something for the committee versus the squadron. I cannot envisage any project where anything would only benefit one over the other, so what projects did you mean that are only for the committee?
I’ve just looked, there is nothing on that form that a trustee would be unable to complete, given that the grant application would be to support the funding of something that collectively the trustee’s have approved in principal (why else would they be seeking grants)
You’ve totally lost me, this is literally in the first line, my bold below.
The charity supports charitable purposes for the benefit of cadets and personnel of the Air Training Corps by providing grants and funding for activities
An interesting aside - our committee raised the other day that now we have the ACC and they are a separate charity from us (also a charity), should we have to highlight this to parents along with the breakdown of where subs go as someone mentioned above?
Failing to understand that is probably one of the reasons why the Civ Com pillar is in the mess it’s in. This independence is quite literally the reason they’re allowed to be Trustees of the fund.
I can see another failure to add to the list here on the Uniformed side.
Completely agree with you. Nothing to stop CWCs applying as far as I can see, so long as there is a benefit to the cadets.
But they exist to benefit the cadets. A charity can give money to someone else who has the same goals as them if the money is, in the end, directly benefiting who it is meant to.
A CWC can apply so long as what they are applying for is to directly benefit the cadets. So my flight sim example above would be fine, at least in that sense.
A more interesting argument would be should CWCs be paying money up the chain at all. Given their charitable aim will be “To benefit cadets at 1234 Sqn ATC”. Does them paying another charity benefit their cadets?
Just to clarify, as per above, this is not a debate about who is eligible to apply for funding from the ACC. This is about things that the Civilian Committee section think work but doesn’t. I’m gonna let that rest now.
I’d actually suggest here that the Sqn CivCom collects subs from the cadets on behalf of the Sqn, Wing, Region & Corps, if any money actually goes to region?
Each cadet pays £2.50 per month (excluding August) to Corps (Air Cadet Charity) however for administrative purposes this is passed from 34 Wings to HQ with the squadrons within the wing are collecting this on behalf of Corps.
The total paid by the cadet could be £10 but this is a collection of:
£2.50 on behalf of Corps
50p on behalf of Wing (Randomly Estimated Figure)
50p on behalf of Region (Randomly Estimated Figure)
£6.50 for the Squadron
Thanks for another one - you have no idea how much you pay to Region or Wing! You again should be able to see this figure published and other Wings should also be able to see this. More secret numbers.
Thanks!
No, and frankly it is absolutely nothing to do with me, I’m not a trustee and therefore have no involvement in the financial aspects of running the squadron, this is why we have a Treasurer who is not the Adjutant.
Why should they? Wing X’s financial requirements and operating costs may be significantly different to Wing Y’s.
This is an interesting point, and perhaps there could be increased transparency here, that said I don’t recall ever having been asked what Subs are for it’s just an expected membership fee, there is always the raised eyebrow at the low cost in comparison to other youth activities.
I have when I was OC of a Sqn. It gave a monthly breakdown of what each cadet pays to each level and a total for the unit based on cadets on BADER. Cant remember the break down but it was a little bit for Wing, a little bit for Region and the majority for the GP fund
No, and frankly it is absolutely nothing to do with me, I’m not a trustee and therefore have no involvement in the financial aspects of running the squadron, this is why we have a Treasurer who is not the Adjutant.
That’s a really worrying attitude and that attitude is one of the reasons why many treasurers are put off. A good trustee does not necessarily have to know too much about the organisation at all. This represents a very historical attitude which is no longer true today. In fact, trustees with an outside view are welcomed by the Charity Commission (see my earlier comment about the ACC and bear alongside my withholding of judgement for the time being in anticipation of some refinement later). I frequently have to correct staff when they say “That’s the civilian committee’s problem” because it generally isn’t!
If you take a look at the Charity Commission Guidelines here:
You’ll see that trustees must simply challenge the OC on how they budget and want to spend money. They must verify, using information about the activity of the squadron that gets reported to them at meetings, information provided to them by the OC at those meetings and they must ensure that financial reporting by the OC is accurate (this is why ACP 10 requires receipts to account for any money collected by staff on the Trustee’s behalf.
At no point are Trustees billed for their contributions to Wings, Regions and Headquarters! The Squadron is billed based on information the Trustees get reported to on each meeting (ie cadet numbers) and check that the Squadron’s bills are in line with those figures before paying. If not, the repercussions are entirely on the OC who maintains SMS numbers. Trustees do not see individual details on SMS and if they could, it shouldn’t mean much to them.
Trustees ensure that subscription payments are collected and checked at their meetings by asking the OC if they have staff doing so and if there are any missed payments (without asking who! Once again separating them from being active in the actual role of the charity/Squadron). Subscriptions are not paid to the trustees. Trustees only ensure that they are being paid.
Don’t misunderstand that if a Trustee wishes to do more than simply act as a trustee, they can to a point. Assisting with budgets, looking for good pricing on products, coming in and helping tally up some accounts with a staff member. But there will become a point where they are acting as a staff member and will have a conflict of interest.